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Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast

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Close Talking is a podcast hosted by good friends Connor Stratton and Jack Rossiter-Munley. In each episode the two read a poem and discuss at length. The pop culture references fly as freely as the literary theories. Close Talking is a poetry podcast anyone can enjoy.Read more »

Close Talking is a podcast hosted by good friends Connor Stratton and Jack Rossiter-Munley. In each episode the two read a poem and discuss at length. The pop culture references fly as freely as the literary theories. Close Talking is a poetry podcast anyone can enjoy.Read Less

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Episode #057 Abandoned Farmhouse - Ted Kooser

< 1 day ago
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42 minutes

Connor and Jack take a detour into American gothic territory with Ted Kooser's eerie "Abandoned Farmhouse." They hone in on what makes the poem so creepy, how the specific and the unnamed work together to heighten its the unsettling atmosphere, and end up reflecting on how it almost sounds like a horrific children's book.
Read the poem below.
More on Ted Kooser, here: http://www.tedkooser.net/about.shtml
Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking
Find us on twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking
You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.
Abandoned Farmhouse
By: Ted Kooser
He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.
A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.
Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm—a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.

Connor and Jack take a detour into American gothic territory with Ted Kooser's eerie "Abandoned Farmhouse." They hone in on what makes the poem so creepy, how the specific and the unnamed work together to heighten its the unsettling atmosphere, and end up reflecting on how it almost sounds like a horrific children's book.
Read the poem below.
More on Ted Kooser, here: http://www.tedkooser.net/about.shtml
Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking
Find us on twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking
You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.
Abandoned Farmhouse
By: Ted Kooser
He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.
A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.
Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm—a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.